April 18, 2004

Blogtending. Do I spend a lot of time writing this blog? A better question might be: do I spend a lot of time reading this blog? One reason to write is to make something you yourself want to read.

Benjamin Disraeli said: "When I want to read a good book, I write one." Well, that's a little arrogant. He did also say: "An author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children." And we all know how bad that is! Anyway, I think the point is, if you want a piece of writing that addresses only what you're interested in, you ought to write it yourself, which is how I feel about blogging. (And, perhaps, if you want to find children endlessly interesting, have some.)

But a big part of reading your own blog is just rechecking your own proofreading. Even though I care a lot about grammar and spelling and form of expression, I have an uncanny ability not to see typos. I could check five times and then find a typo on the seventh. Like this morning, when I wrote "If you're easily board..." And you might have thought, yeah, why am I reading a blog by someone who's too "board" even to proofread? So, I spend a fair amount of time reading my own blog so you won't have to think that. And yet... there is always one more thing!

UPDATE: I could check five times and then find a typo on the seventh. Uh, I meant to say that?